My Fair Week

Fair Week is always something to look forward to as a Bloomsburg student. A week off to enjoy yourself with family and friends and you can’t forget Denny and Pearl’s pizza! I see fair week more as a really busy week because while they are many people enjoying the fair – I’m stuck working. It was Monday night and I was almost done working my shift at the deer and potbelly pig petting stand. My boss comes up to me and says, “Hey I know you have off for tomorrow because of your game, but I need you to come in tomorrow night so I can go to the concert.” I really had no choice so I took the shift, and went on about my day.

My game was set in the afternoon and we had to travel all the way to Nanticoke. It was excruciatingly hot outside so that didn’t make matters any better. During the first quarter, a girl from the other team had a breakaway, and I ran to the ball and got control of it but she ended up shoulder-checking my jaw. I felt extremely dizzy and I had to sit out for a little. We ended up winning 3-0, but when we looked in the record book we had 36 shots on goal and only managed to score 3. I guess you can say the weather was not on our side. When the game was done, we headed back to Bloomsburg. My whole team was tired and most of the girls were lucky and got to go home and sleep. I threw on a brand new shirt and headed to the fair.

The fair wasn’t as busy as usual but my stand was small so it gets packed easily. Julia and I were running the stand and it was pretty stressful to manage everything between the two of us. Some lady asked if I could pick up a pig for her and I choose to pick up the smallest one because it was the easiest one too without him squealing. I held the pig for a good 30 seconds and I felt something drop on my shoes. I looked down and saw pig poop down my new shirt and shoes. Of course, I was horrified and wanted to freak out but there were too many people around me. It didn’t help at all when Julia and Robert were laughing their asses off.

I can’t really do anything about my game because it was all based on weather and everyone was tired, but I learned from this experience is not to wear nice clothes when handling animals. I feel like there isn’t a proper quote to relate to this story for my blog, but I found something on Instagram that made me rethink the way I talk to people and I became more self-aware of my relationships.

“Lately I’ve been replacing my “I’m sorry”s with “thank you”s, like instead of saying “sorry I’m late” I’ll say “thanks for waiting for me”, or instead of “sorry for being such a mess” I’ll say “thank you for loving me and caring about me unconditionally” and it’s not only shifted the way I think and feel about myself but also improved my relationships with others who now get to receive my gratitude instead of my negativity.”